Memories Of Another Day Part 53

''How long will you be gone?"

*'ril be in and out," he said. "I'm working out the schedule so that I'll be here when the baby comes."

Suddenly she was angry. "That's real nice of you," she said sarcastically.

"What's eating you?" he asked. "I told you I'd be here when the baby comes."

"And what am I supposed to do when you're out on the road having all those meetings? Sit here waiting, holding my belly in my hands?"

"This is business," he snapped, "Stop acting like a child."

"I may be only seventeen, but I'm not acting like a child," she said in a hurt voice. "I'm acting like a woman who is going to have a baby and wants her husband to be near her."

He looked at her without speaking for a moment. He had almost forgotten. Seventeen. He was fifty-six. There was a long spread of years between them, and maybe there would never be a way to build a bridge across time. He reached for her hand. "I'm sorry, Margaret," he said slowly. "I wouldn't do this if there were anyone else who could do it. But it's my job."

The telephone began to ring. She withdrew her hand from his grip. "That's your friend Mr. Miami Lansky Gangster, whoever the h.e.l.l he is," she said coldly. "You better go answer it. There's n.o.body else to speak to him."

Detroit. '*You were right about your tip," he said. **I got my first visit from the McClellan committee today."

''What did they want?"

*They started for my files. I threw them out. They got nothing."

''Who were they?"

"Some kid named Bob Kennedy who says he's the chief counsel. A real jerk. He had two flunkies with him." Hoffa paused. "They still on your tafl?"

"Parked right outside my house," Daniel said. "Out in the open where I can see them."

"What do you think?" Hoffa asked.

"They're fis.h.i.+ng. They don't know what they're looking for. They're hoping we'll do something that they can make a case out of."

"I took your advice and spoke to my lawyer. He says sit tight and give them nothing unless they come with a subpoena. Then, even with that, he has ways to make it tough for them."

Daniel thought for a moment. "I think my mutual-fund idea is even more important now than ever. It will be a clean operation that no one can throw a stone at. Open and aboveboard."

"The word out of Florida is that it won't be so clean. They want in, and they're p.i.s.sed off you didn't talk to them."

"Too bad," Daniel said. "I'll straighten them out."

"They play rough," Hoflfa said.

"We don't?" Daniel laughed.

Hoflfa laughed. "If you need help, holler."

"If I need help it will be too late to holler," Daniel said.

"Just be careful," Hoflfa said. "Good luck."

"Thanks." Daniel put down the telephone. He stood there for a moment, then called Moses at home. "Bring your car over and park it on the street behind my house. Wait there for me."

"What's up?"

''Nothing to worry about. I just have to get out of here without my watchdogs following me."

'TU be there in fifteen minutes."

Daniel went back into the living room. Margaret was sitting on the couch. ''Moses is coming for me in about fifteen minutes. I'm going out the back door and through our neighbors' yard to the street behind us.'*

"Why can't you go out the firont door?"

"Because there are some men out there from the Senate Labor Committee. They've been following me for weeks now and I don't want them to know where I'm going."

She was silent, watching him pour another drink for himself. She waited until he drank it. "Why didn't you tell me about those men before?"

"I didn't want to worry you. Besides, it's not important."

"Not important? Is that what you want me to think? Because it's not important you carry a gun on you all the time. What do you expect me to think? I'm going out of my mind thinking you're in some kind of danger I know nothing about."

"I've always carried a guh."

"D.J. told me that, but I thought it was only to make me feel better."

"It's true," he said. "It's habit more than anything else." He refilled his gla.s.s. "A long time ago I was kidnapped, beaten up and held prisoner for three days, then dumped on a deserted highway in the middle of a freezing storm. I swore I would never again allow that to happen to me."

"Are you going to meet Lansky?"

He nodded.

"WiU it be dangerous?"

"No. We just have some business to talk."

"How long will you be?"

He looked at his watch. It was almost ten o'clock. "Not long. I'll be back here before midnight. I'll call you if I see it will be later."

*'rilwaitupforyou.''

He smiled and bent, kissing her cheek. "Don't worry, Margaret. I'll be all right."

Moses pulled the car into the parking lot behind the warehouse. ''Want me to go with you?" he asked.

Daniel shook his head. "No. Wait here in the car for me." He went up the steps and knocked on the iron door. The door opened and the same man who had let him in before nodded to him. Daniel followed him inside.

It was exactly the same as it had been before. The counting tables were busy, and no one looked up as they walked through the rooms and into the office. As before, Lansky was behind the desk.

The blond bodyguard stepped in front of Daniel as he started forward. "You packing a gun?" he asked in a cold voice.

"No. I don't carry guns when I visit friends," Daniel said.

The bodyguard glanced over his shoulder at Lansky.

"If he says he's not carrying a gun," Lansky said softly, "he's not carrying a gun."

The bodyguard nodded, then, turning swiftly, dug a hard right fist into Daniel's stomach. Daniel bent almost double, fighting the pain and sudden nausea that clutched at him. He stayed bent over, forcing himself to breathe slowly, until the nausea subsided, then straightened up.

There was a faint smile on Lansky's face. "My boy doesn't like having guns shoved in his face."

"I don't blame him," Daniel said. He started as if to walk around the bodyguard to the desk. The bodyguard turned to watch, and so he never saw Daniel's hamlike fist coming up almost from the floor. Daniel felt the shock run up through his arm as the old-fas.h.i.+oned uppercut tore into the bodyguard's chin, lifting the man almost straight up into the air, across the coraer of the desk, tumbling backward until he came to a stop against the wall and slid to the floor. The bodyguard's chin hung crookedly from his face, broken teeth impacted into his lower lip, blood pouring from his nose and mouth, his eyes dazed and vague.

Daniel stared down at him for a moment, then turned back to Lansky. He spoke as if there had been no interruption. ''I don't like having guns shoved at me either."

Lansky stared at him for a moment, then glanced down at the bodyguard. He gestured to the two other men in the room. ''Better get him out of here and clean him up."

"If I were you," Daniel said. *'I would get him to a doctor. Your boy's got a gla.s.s jaw. I felt it break in at least three different places." He moved toward the chair. "Mind if I sit down?"

Lansky gestured silently. They didn't speak until they were alone in the room and the door had clicked shut.

"Now what was that all about?" Daniel asked.

"Fm sorry," Lansky said. "But you know how it is. I had to let him prove himself."

Daniel shook his head. "What did he prove? Noth-mg.

"He proved himself out of a job," Lansky said. "I don't need bodyguards with gla.s.s jaws."

Daniel laughed. His voice turned serious. "So much for the fim and games. You wanted to see me?"

Lansky came right to the point. "The mutual ftind. My feelings are hurt. You didn't ask me in."

"That's right."

"I want in."

"It's not part of our deal," Daniel said.

"I didn't say it was," Lansky replied. "I just told you I wanted in."

"Then let me make it simple for you, Mr. Lansky. The reason you weren't asked in is that I don't want you in. This is one operation that's going to stay clean."

"You're being naive," Lansky said. '"You're asking for trouble. We can blow you away like that." He snapped his fingers.

Daniel smiled. 'Then you have nothing. Not the mutual fiind nor the business we're already operating."

''You have a pregnant wife and a son at school," Lansky said.

"And what do you have, Mr. Lansky?" Daniel asked softly. "A life you live in the shadows, surrounded by gla.s.s jaws to keep you from being blown away? Did you stop to think that every time the butcher and grocer come to your house, every electrician and telephone man, every delivery that's made to you is made by a man who wears a union b.u.t.ton? There's twenty million of them. And if I say the word, there is no way on G.o.d's earth you can escape them short of dying of natural causes."

Lansky stared at him without speaking. Daniel got to his feet. Lansky finally spoke. "I'm not alone in this. I'll have to explain it to my a.s.sociates."

Daniel looked down at him. "You speak Yiddish don't you?"

Lansky nodded.

"When I was going to the labor school in New York many years ago, I picked up a few phrases that really said it all. This is one of them. You tell your a.s.sociates that I'm the shabbes goy. That I'm the one man who can help keep^ the labor movement respectable and legitimate in the public eye. And they don't want to f.u.c.k with that, because if they do, they might very well kill the goose that lays the golden egg."

"I don't know whether they'll buy it."

"If they don't," Daniel said, "we'U both be sorry."

Lansky stared up at him thoughtfully. Finally a slow * smile crossed his face. "Are you really sure you're not Daniel Webster?"

'That's not my style," Daniel said. "Fm not a con man." He bit the end from another cigar. ''Where do I go next?"

"It's a big one," Jack said. "Detroit. We expect fifteen thousand men at this one. In addition to the Teamsters, Reuther promised us a big turnout from the United Auto Workers. It's so big that we've even got network television and radio coverage."

Daniel chewed on the cigar for a moment. "Maybe we'd better cancel it. I don't feel like having the whole country watch me fall on my a.s.s."

"Father." D.J. came toward the desk. "I have an idea, but I don't know whether it will work."

His father looked at him. "Let's hear it. Right now I'm ready to listen to anything."

"It may not be a practical application for this," D.J. said. "But one of the courses I just finished was on credit and installment buying. You know-automobile, appliances, home furnis.h.i.+ngs, things like that."

Daniel was suddenly interested. "Tell me more."

"They pay so much down and so much a week or a month until it's all paid off. The minute the contract is signed, the seller discounts the contract with a bank and he's got his money right away. And the buyer has the merchandise."

"It's not quite the same thing," Daniel said.

"Maybe. But in our case, a share in the mutual fund is our merchandise. And you know as well as I do that the average man will think twice about sh.e.l.ling out a hundred dollars at one clip, but two dollars a week doesn't sound so bad."

Jack spoke quickly. "I think D.J. has a good point there."

"We're not set up to do business like that," Daniel said.

"We can handle it," Moses said. "They can make their payments directly to their union, which can then forward it to us each month."

^'That's right." Jack nodded. "And if we draw up the right kind of purchase contract I'm sure we can find a bank to discount it."

Daniel finally held a match to his cigar. He was nodding to himself. It could just work. 'Tve got the bank. The U.M.W. is the major shareholder of the National Bank of Was.h.i.+ngton. Fm sure John L. will tell Barney Colton, who's running the bank for them, to give us the money."

He looked up at DJ. ''You've come up with a very good idea, son."

D.J. flushed. ''We don't know yet, Father. It might not work."